The Hermit and the Orphan
by Aleine Skyfire
Summary: Ten years after the rise of the Empire, a certain Jedi hermit rescues a Force-sensitive orphan in Mos Eisley, on the run from her former master. Obi-Wan Kenobi, meet Mara Jade.
1. Chance Encounters

**A/N:** So... I was talking with orelseatlastsheunderstoodit on Tumblr about the potential of Mara Jade being Obi-Wan's daughter, biological or adopted, and it... snowballed. Into this.  
This is gonna be a long and big AU eventually, probably. :D

 _Disclaimer: I own nothing, you know the drill._

 **==The Family You Choose==**

 **I. The Hermit and the Orphan**

 **Chapter 1: Chance Encounters**

Once a year, Obi-Wan Kenobi rented a speeder and travelled to Mos Eisley on a special errand. Bail Organa would put money into an account for "Ben Antilles," and Obi-Wan would withdraw just enough to see him through the year. In the past ten years since he'd arrived on-planet, these outings had never been very eventful. Tatooine, for all its harshness, was a planet which was dependable in that harshness, the vices of criminals and the tyranny of Hutts as steady and unending as the desert itself.

No wonder Anakin had hated it.

This year, however… as he stepped out of Mos Eisley's one bank, he heard the outraged shrieks of a young girl and the curses of grown men—noises that, heard together, never boded well.

Slinging his sack over his shoulder, he hurried towards the source of the commotion. A human man and a Weequay were trying to subdue one small girl, too small to be even a young teenager. The child, pale and redheaded, was putting up a good fight, twisting and punching and kicking and even biting when the opportunity arose, and Obi-Wan saw signs of basic combat training in her moves. More than that… heavens above, she was a shining beacon in the Force!

Nevertheless, she was only a child, and Tatooine was not kind to lone children.

He drew close and raised his voice. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said in a reasonable tone and an Outer Rim accent. "Would you mind unhanding my daughter?"

The three combatants froze, although the girl blessedly caught on quickly enough and cried out, "Papa!"

"This your brat, mister?" the human snarled, giving the girl a shake.

"She's my _daughter_ ," Obi-Wan said with a calm he no longer felt. There was real fear in the girl's wide green eyes, and it tugged at his weary heart. "Be so kind as to let her go."

"Your brat's a thief," the Weequay spat. "Tried to snatch my pal's wallet. We have ways around here of dealing with little thieves."

The girl's fear and panic in the Force spiked, and that did it.

Obi-Wan _moved_.

A decade in the desert hadn't stolen from his body a lifetime of rigorous training and even more rigorous battle. He punched the human hard in the face and at the same time was already moving to deliver a kick to the Weequay's stomach. Howling, both men let go of the child, and she darted forward. Obi-Wan then kicked the human down and gave the Weequay a punch that also sent him to the ground, then spun around, grabbed the girl's hand, and ran, initially dragging her until she decided to stop fighting _him_ and move with the flow. The pair behind them shouted in pain and outrage, and, soon enough, Obi-Wan and the girl were dodging blaster bolts.

"Where are we going?" shouted the girl, her accent now Coruscanti rather than Rim, and Obi-Wan nearly halted in shock. It had been a long time since he'd heard that accent.

Obi-Wan said nothing, merely nodded at the speeder ahead of them. As they reached it, he hauled her bodily into the craft, ignoring her indignant shout, and clambered into it, ducking again as a blaster bolt nearly singed his hair. He revved the engine, hoping that the blasterfire would not damage the rental, and shot the speeder forward, doing his best to weave around traffic without hitting anyone. " _Blast_ ," he gritted out. Get-away flying wasn't his expertise—that had always been Anakin's. He did his best to ignore the pang in his chest as he concentrated on flying.

"I think you lost them!" the girl called after half a minute.

"Perhaps, but best to get out of the city before we let our guard down," Obi-Wan told her. The green eyes widened at his own Coruscanti accent surfacing, but she didn't comment on it. The next moment, he felt her presence in the Force wink out of existence, and blinked—those were some very powerful mental shields she was employing. She had had training—who had trained her?! Most Jedi initiates wouldn't have been able to shield like that at her age, which he thought must be around ten.

Around the age Anakin had been when Obi-Wan had first met him.

As luck would have it, however, they cleared Mos Eisley in another minute without any sign of pursuit, and Obi-Wan decided that the danger was indeed over. He slowed the speeder a little and looked over at his young companion. "I do believe we're in the clear," he said dryly, hoping to get a smile out of her.

There was a flash of one, and then apprehension stole over her delicate features. "Thanks for helping me," she said softly.

"My pleasure," Obi-Wan assured her gently. "My name is Ben; what's yours?"

"...Celina." She grimaced as she realized how unconvincing she sounded.

Obi-Wan smiled. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, 'Celina.' Might I ask what a Core girl is doing out here on the Outer Rim alone? You _are_ alone, I take it?"

"...yeah." She frowned. "Well, what about you? You're from the Core, too."

"Retirement."

She snorted. "Who retires to a place like this?"

"Perhaps," he said slowly, carefully, watching her, "a person who, much like a child showing up alone on the same planet, does not wish to be found."

She went silent, eyeing him suspiciously past the red-gold hair flying around her face. At last, she said, "Where are you taking me?"

"Back to my home, if you don't mind. I don't know where else to take a runaway child; Tatooine doesn't exactly possess child services. I can give you a decent meal and, more importantly on this planet, some water."

"And after that?"

He sighed. "Let's see how supper goes, shall we?"

She frowned heavily, then her face cleared slightly. "I don't… I don't mean to sound ungrateful."

"You're a young child wandering alone who has been picked up by a man you don't know," he said reasonably. "You _should_ be suspicious."

"But you want me to trust you."

"I hope that you will. Enough to tell me what you are doing with yourself so that I can help you." _Enough to tell me how you learned to use the Force_.

She turned away to watch sienna and beige-streaked stone pass by them. "We'll see."


	2. Mara

**Chapter 2: Mara**

As Obi-Wan ushered Celina into his house, he looked at the place with fresh eyes for the first time in ten years. It was small and cramped and rough. It wasn't his home; it was just a place he lived in. Home had _burned_ , and then been mutilated into a palace for the author of its destruction.

 _This is no place to raise a child_. He nearly started—where had _that_ thought come from? Obviously, he needed to give the girl some much-needed care in the present, but he would have to find someone willing to take her in if she was, as he suspected, parentless. _Like you gave up Luke when you owed it to both his parents to take care of him?_ He shook himself, trying to shake off this sudden madness—he knew that, someday, he would have to train Luke and possibly Leia as well in the way of the Jedi, but they were young children yet and he was not yet prepared for that day!

 _Raising another child would be foolish. I failed Anakin. I'll not fail another_.

Speaking of the girl, she was studying his dwellings with the gaze of a child learning to observe their surroundings in minute detail. "Nice place," she said finally, with the kind of flippancy that was the specialty of pre-adolescent children.

"It's not much, and it's not home," Obi-Wan said dryly, moving towards the kitchenette. "But it _is_ a roof to keep the suns out." He paused. "Are there any food restrictions I should know about before I fix you supper?"

Celina shook her head, sitting on a bench and watching him move around the kitchen. Silence settled between them, almost comfortably, and as he worked, Obi-Wan attempted to piece together what he knew about the child. She could be no older than the Skywalker twins, and she had been taught to use the Force, at least to shield. She also knew well how to fight, and wasn't willing to trust anyone at the drop of a hat. None of these things were particularly enlightening, alone or put together: they merely built up to the vague picture of a child born to a Jedi parent, one who had escaped the Purges.

She was also alone now, so it was safe to assume that that parent was dead.

He glanced at her as he worked and tried to find features reminding him of any Jedi he knew, even if there had been thousands he hadn't. If anything, the girl could have passed for a child between himself and Siri Tachi, but Siri had been killed before Celina would have been born, and Obi-Wan had never been intimate with Siri or Satine or anyone else. _Much to your regret now, eh?_ He sighed and shut down that voice. He had enough regrets without dwelling on the women he'd loved, and something told him madness lay that way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the child's eyelids drooping and smiled. "You could take a nap before supper, if you like."

She jerked herself upright, blinking. "No thanks."

"As you like."

Finally, the stew was finished, and he handed a bowl, a spoon, and cup of water to the child, who accepted them with gratitude and relief in her green eyes. How long had it been since the girl had had a decent meal?

 _Too long. She's much too thin_.

Obi-Wan took a seat himself and began to eat the very plain food he'd concocted. He'd never been a good cook—Anakin had been, not he—and in his ten years on Tatooine, he'd never before had to foist his cooking upon another being.

Celina didn't seem to care, nearly choking as she wolfed the stuff down.

"Careful," Obi-Wan said mildly, not expecting to be heeded. After another bite of his own food, he ventured, "What's your real name, little one?"

She stopped, and stared at him, as if silently saying that she'd have to be pretty stupid to trust him that far.

Undeterred, he pressed on. "Very well, I'll tell you mine. My real name is Obi-Wan Kenobi."

She did choke a little on that, eyes flying wide open. "You're kidding!"

"I assure you, I'm not." Clearly, his reputation preceded him.

"You're one of the Jedi who escaped the Purges!" she said in awe. "You've got the highest bounty on your head in the Empire!"

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Do I? Fancy that. How does a girl your age know about the Empire's Most Wanted?"

She pondered that for a moment. "I like to know what's going on in the galaxy."

That was a truth, but not the truth he'd asked for. "Celina," he said gently. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'll not harm you. I want to help you."

"Mara," she blurted out, not meeting his eyes. "My name is Mara Jade."

Interesting—she was actively hiding something. And why should the daughter of a Jedi dance around the truth with another Jedi?

 _Unless she wasn't trained by a Jedi_. He suppressed a shiver at the thought and smiled warmly at her, leaning forward and extending his hand towards her. "Mara Jade, it is nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," she said automatically, taking his hand and letting him shake hers. She looked just barely frightened.

Obi-Wan sighed. "Mara. I will not hurt you, I promise."

"You shouldn't promise that," she said softly, pain in her eyes. What had happened to this little girl to put that look there?

"Why not?" She was hiding something from him, and she was afraid he'd hurt her. She knew that he had an astronomically large bounty on his head. As the silence dragged on, he really did not like the picture that was now forming in his head. "Mara?" He kept his voice very gentle. "You were not trained to use the Force by a Jedi, were you?"

Her eyes went wider, but she shook her head.

"Little one, whatever the person who trained you has done, I trust that you yourself are innocent."

"I thought the Jedi believed in evil by association," Mara whispered.

He nodded slowly. "Yes. I'm afraid we did. But I am no longer what you might call a proper Jedi." He softened his voice again. "Who was your teacher, Mara?"

She didn't speak. Instead, he felt the shields around her mind sink away, and the bright light that was her presence in the Force came seeping through and filling the space around her. Only… now that he could pay attention, there were small threads, filaments, of shadow running through the light. He grasped one thread, carefully, and followed it to its source.

A memory. A memory of a decayed face, yellowed teeth bared in a rotten smile and brighter yellow eyes flashing in pride. " _My child,"_ rasped a voice that had withered significantly, but not to the point that Obi-Wan could not recognize it immediately. " _My little Hand."_

He withdrew back into himself with a gasp and stared at her, his body numb. "The _Emperor?_ The _Emperor_ trained you?!"

Her small body tensed, eyes wary, shields slamming back into place. "Yes."

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, forcing his wildly beating heart to calm. "Right. Very well. You're not the first child he's taught." Unbidden, his thoughts turned not only to Anakin but to Maul, as well. Had Maul ever been innocent? He must have been, at some point—no one was _born_ evil, not even a Hutt. _Not even Anakin_. And not small, scared Mara.

"Forgive me, my dear," he said softly. "I did not intend to frighten you."

"I'm Sithspawn, or near enough," she said bitterly. "You should intend to kill me."

He stared at her, horror piercing his shock. "Do you want me to?"

"...no."

"Very well, then." He sighed, and dragged both hands down his face. "Why are you here, then, and not on Coruscant?"

"Imperial Center," she corrected automatically. He snorted at that. "I… ran away."

He raised both eyebrows. "Why?"

"Because… because… because I found out that he had my parents murdered when he took me as a baby, that's why." She looked fierce for a moment, and then the moment was gone. "Among other things," she muttered.

A shiver crawled up Obi-Wan's spine. Stealing Force-sensitive babies and murdering their parents—this was Palpatine's galaxy. _Not so different from the Jedi, though, is it? Of course you didn't murder the parents, but you still took their children_. He took an unsteady breath. "I see," he said at last.

Mara looked up at him defiantly, and for one painful moment, he saw Anakin at that age instead of her. Arguing—he didn't even remember what it was about, just the stubborn anger in Anakin's eyes, his clenched jaw, his stiff posture.

Palpatine had gotten his claws into Anakin so young, and Obi-Wan bore some of the blame for that, but the Sith Lord had started on Mara even younger.

Obi-Wan set down his bowl, rose from his chair, and went to sit beside Mara. She stiffened further, hunching up to make herself as small as possible, and with a fresh wave of horror, he recognized the reaction: the response of a child who believed they were about to be hit. He reached out cautiously and wound an arm around her tiny shoulders; her body did not relax. "Mara." He tried to infuse his voice with all the warmth and tenderness he could. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Still, she said nothing, but he caught a flash of self-loathing from her, and his chest tightened. _She_ believed she should be hurt, or at the very least, that she deserved no kindness.

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan continued slowly, "that _he_ did."

She looked up then, confusion replacing the pain in her eyes.

"And, frankly, I think it was very brave of you to run from him and everything you've ever known. Not many people have that kind of courage." She shook her head, but he began to rub her back in slow, soothing circles. "He called you his 'hand'; what does that mean?"

She took a shuddering breath, truly looking like a young child for the first time since Obi-Wan had met her. "'Emperor's Hand,'" she said, voice small. "His special agent, an extension of his will—investigation, espionage, negotiation… assassination. That's what he was raising me to be." She paused, but Obi-Wan said nothing, merely continued rubbing her back. "He said that I was _his Hand_ , like I was his only Hand—over and over again. The only one. Special. Until… I was slicing into databases a few weeks ago, just for fun, you know? And… I found the others. The other Hands. For a long time, I could only just think… _Why?_ Why would he do that to me? Let me think I was special when… when I wasn't? Why didn't I ever know any of them, or about them?"

She paused again, taking a calming breath. "It was so hard, shielding everything from him, then, and I felt so awful. I told myself he must have had a good reason for what he did—he always did." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That's what I always told myself: _he has a good reason for it_. But this time… this time made me wonder if… if he'd lied about anything else.

"So I went looking. I looked up my own file. I bypassed all the safeguards around it and got the complete thing. That's when… that's when…"

"When you found out about your parents," Obi-Wan murmured.

She nodded mutely.

"So you ran away."

"I didn't know what to do," she burst out, so much raw pain in her voice that Obi-Wan felt as if his own heart might bleed. "I wanted to hurt him." She choked. " _I wanted to kill him_. He was like my father and I loved him _and I wanted to kill him_."

Obi-Wan folded his arms around her and pulled her close. She relaxed just a little, but there was no trace of tears in her voice—just pain, infinite and unending as the desert. "It's all right to cry, little one," he murmured into her hair. Would that he had let Anakin cry more often, hypocrite that he was, rather than telling him to release his emotions into the Force.

" _I can't_. I can't cry; I haven't been able to… not since I found out. It hurts too much."

He understood. _Watching the holorecording, watching his... brothersonbestfriend... murder children, kneel before a Sith Lord…_ He understood only too well.

He stroked her hair, a small part of him wondering where these paternal instincts had come from. He'd never acted this gently with Anakin. _Perhaps if I had, I would not have lost him_. No, Anakin had only begun to teach him to be this gentle, and Ahsoka, whom he'd met when he'd been older, more patient, more willing to learn, had completed the lesson.

The small child in his arms shuddered and relaxed only gradually. There would be no tears this time, he knew. But she was so young and perhaps _she_ could move on with her life where he seemed largely unable to.

"Mara," he said softly, "you're welcome to stay here for as long as you like."

She shook her head. "...I'd be putting you in danger. My shields will slip, and he'll sense me."

Obi-Wan smiled. "Mara, let your shields down for a moment."

She pushed away from him and stared up at him. "What?"

He nodded encouragingly. "I want to show you something."

"He'll know where—"

"He won't. I promise."

Her thin eyebrows slanted severely downward, but she closed her eyes, and he felt her shields lowering again. A tendril of her consciousness poked out from behind the shields, cautiously, curiously. He waited.

After a second, her eyes opened wide. "What… what _is_ that?"

He smiled ruefully. "That, my dear, is the planet."

"It's so… it's so _bright_. It's so _much_."

He nodded. "I hadn't noticed the first time I came here, but when I came to stay, I couldn't help but feel it." The Force was strong here in a way he'd never felt before, not even on Coruscant, with its untold trillions of inhabitants. Coruscant was alive with people, but Tatooine, for all its bleakness, was simply _alive_. "This planet is very old. It has many memories and many secrets. Did you know that it was once a green world?"

Mara shook her head, both eyebrows rising.

"It wasn't always a desert. And people believe that, someday, the water will return, and the desert will fade into life."

"That's impossible," Mara said flatly.

"Perhaps. But I do understand the appeal of the idea." Obi-Wan met her gaze squarely. "Mara, this planet is too _loud_ for him to hear you all the way from Coruscant. He won't find you out here, I promise."

Her face twisted, clearly torn between wanting to believe him and being afraid to trust him. "He used to do that," she said softly. "Assure me that I was safe, that I was…" _Loved_.

She hung her head, and Obi-Wan felt a surge of blinding anger towards the man, the _monster_ , who had twisted Anakin into a monster and had dealt so much damage to such a young girl.

 _Anger is not the Jedi way._

 _What's the point of being a Jedi if I can't be angry about something like this?_

He took a calming breath, nevertheless, and reached into his robes. "Do you know what the Jedi teach—what the Jedi _taught_ —about lightsabers?"

She looked up with a frown and shook her head.

"That a Jedi's lightsaber is his life. That it is a symbol of who he is, that it can mean the difference between life and death." He withdrew his own saber from his robes and extended it, pommel first, to Mara. "This weapon is my life. My life, in your hands."

She took it with an expression of awe—had she ever held a lightsaber before? She looked back up at him again. "You'd trust me… with your life?"

"Yes. Because I believe that you are a good person, no matter what Palpatine did to you. Because I want you to feel safe."

She shook her head slowly. "...I don't… I don't think…"

"Give it a week," Obi-Wan said gently. "Give it a couple of weeks. Give yourself some time to rest. And at the end of two weeks, if you really want to move on, well, then…" He sighed. "I'll help you to do so."

She looked at him with those big green eyes, and he saw both Anakin and Ahsoka for a moment before he saw _Mara_. Small, vulnerable, hurting, defiant, brave… strong. He had failed two children very dear to him in the past; he couldn't fail this child before him now.

He extended his hand to her. "Deal?"

After a moment, she took it. "Deal."

 **A/N:** WOW, I can't believe all the attention this got so quickly! Thank you to everybody who did a bookmark or gave a kudos!

(Still, reviews mean love. :D )

I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the next chapter, so if you want to read more stuff for this AU, check out my tag for it on Tumblr! It goes pretty far into the future of the story, so... there be spoilers. My tumblr is astudyinimagination, and after the URL, type in tagged/the+Obi+Wan+adopts+Mara+AU


	3. Ethics and Logistics

WOW, what a response! I am so thrilled beyond words at how many people like this! I'm afraid this chapter is a tiny bit filler-ish. I'm not thrilled with it, but I want to get it out there, especially with everybody eager to see more. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **3\. Ethics and Logistics**

Obi-Wan very quickly realized that there would be logistical problems to housing _anyone_ else in his small house, let alone a child who owned nothing other than the clothes on her back. Clothing was a good start; until he went in to Anchorhead to buy her some new clothes, she would have to make due with his tunics, which fit like much-too-wide dresses on her. He would have to buy more food, too, which meant spending more money… _no, leave those thoughts for the morning. There will be time in the morning_.

And tonight, he would be sleeping on the floor, as there was only one bed.

"I can sleep on the floor," Mara protested. "I don't mind."

"My dear, I have slept in far worse places than on the floor of my own house, I assure you." The bed was none too comfortable anyway, as she'd soon discover.

Mara sighed in resignation and gingerly touched her red face. "Ow." On the way home, the suns had burned her very pale skin, but she hadn't begun to feel the effects until after supper.

"You can use the sonic shower—" he nodded at the closet-sized refresher in the back corner of the house—"and I believe I have some cream for that burn; we can do apply it after you shower." She nodded. "And I have a tunic you can wear to bed; it will be big on you, but you can wear it until I clean your clothes. That is, if you want them to be cleaned, and not get so dirty that they stand up on their own."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, _please_. I'm not an urchin, _Ben_ —I'm used to changing my clothes three times a day."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid we don't have that luxury here. In the morning, I should probably go out to Anchorhead and see about buying you some new clothes. That is, unless you _want_ to wear those for the rest of your life."

Mara shuddered and shook her head. "Yeah, no."

Obi-Wan chuckled, and handed her the tunic. "I'll go outside, and you can call when you're done." The house had partitions, but it was still all one room aside from the 'fresher, and she'd hardly have room to dress herself in there.

"Thanks," she said somewhat shyly.

He nodded, turned, and left the house, the door hissing shut behind him. Out here, Tatoo I and II hung low in the horizon, the desert that was mostly yellow and brown by day now bathed in orange and red. In the other direction, the moons were rising, crescent and pale. He took a deep breath of the blissfully cooling air.

 _I'm really doing this. I'm taking in a child._ He smirked to himself. _Qui-Gon must be so proud_.

"I am," said a deep, gravelly, infinitely-familiar voice behind him.

Unsurprised, Obi-Wan turned and raised an eyebrow at the transparent blue form of his departed Master, who was smiling warmly. "I was wondering when you'd turn up."

"I thought it best not to alarm the child just yet."

Obi-Wan snorted. "What do you know about her?"

"No more than you, Obi-Wan. Don't forget that I'm not omniscient, not existing in the Force like this."

Obi-Wan sighed. "I remember, I remember."

Qui-Gon's eyes twinkled with mischief. "You'd best watch your step, my old Padawan. That one is a firecracker. Once she feels safe and comfortable with you, you'll have no end of trouble."

Obi-Wan groaned. "...I thought you said that you're not omniscient. How do you know she'll stay?"

"I don't know in any quantifiable way," Qui-Gon shrugged, "but I do feel very strongly that she will."

"Good," Obi-Wan murmured. She was just a child, absolutely no older than Anakin had been when they'd first met. She needed someone to take care of her.

"And train her, if she wants it," Qui-Gon added.

Obi-Wan frowned. "I wish you'd stop doing that. Reading my thoughts."

The ghost chuckled. "I'm sorry. It's just very easy."

Ob-Wan rolled his eyes. "Go bother someone else. Go bother Anakin." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he hadn't said them. How could he have been so callous to his Master and the memory of his former Padawan?

Qui-Gon's craggy face had creased further with pain. "I do," he said softly. "He doesn't listen. He doesn't realize that I'm real, and not a dream."

For a moment, Obi-Wan's heart hurt so much that he could have clawed it out of him just to stop the pain. "I'm sorry."

Qui-Gon smiled sadly. "I'll let you get back to your new charge. I'll go 'bother' Yoda, instead."

Obi-Wan smiled faintly for his master's sake. "Please give him my regards."

"Of course. Relax, young one, and trust the Force." Qui-Gon's image was already beginning to fade. "It is with you right now."

* * *

The tunic turned out to be huge on Mara's tiny frame. She seemed to enjoy it, however, all but nestling into its folds like luxuriating in a bathrobe. "I feel so clean," she said happily. "I don't even care that it wasn't a real shower."

Obi-Wan chuckled. "I'm afraid a real shower is too expensive on this planet." He went to his small medicine cabinet for the skin cream, one he hadn't needed to use in years as his skin had tanned enough to the point where it rarely burned anymore. He found the right tube and brought it out; Mara reached for it, but he said, "Allow me."

And she did, taking a seat on the bench again and folding her hands in her lap. Obi-Wan leaned down and began to gently smear white cream on her hot, chapped skin. "That is an impressive burn you've got," he teased.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he chuckled. "I never got out much."

Obi-Wan nodded, lightly running his finger down her small nose, making her squirm reflexively. "I'd imagine."

"I've never had sunburn before in my _life_." She sounded so offended that Obi-Wan couldn't help chuckling again, and her resulting glare made him laugh harder. "You mock my pain," she said flatly, and he realized she was deadpanning.

He made himself sober instantly. "I would _never_ do such a thing," he said solemnly.

She gave a slight laugh, and he smiled, basking in the warmth of the sound. He had lived alone for so long, after being a part of tight-knit communities—first the Jedi and then the GAR—all his life. And it felt so _good_ to spend time with someone—anyone—without the secret of his being a Jedi between them.

She let him finish rubbing the cream, eyes closed in contentment, no doubt relieved at the cool freshness seeping into her skin. "Did you burn a lot when you first came here?"

"A little," Obi-Wan admitted. "My skin eventually tanned enough that the suns hardly burn it anymore."

Mara pouted. "Lucky."

He chuckled and put away the cream. "There we go. That should help you heal overnight."

"Thanks," she murmured, giving him a small smile.

He returned it, heart warmed by the knowledge that, whatever Palpatine had done to her, he hadn't stolen all her softness. "You're most welcome." He nodded at the bed, a shelf jutting out from the wall with a mattress atop it. "Are you ready for bed?"

She nodded and yawned. "I feel like I could sleep for a week."

His smile softened. "Then get some sleep, little one. You're safe tonight. And make sure to wrap up well with the blankets; the nights are cold."

* * *

Obi-Wan was not a lucid dreamer, but he could almost always distinguish his dreams from reality, and he had had versions of this dream many times.

Ahsoka had never left the Temple, never been accused of being a terrorist in the first place. She was a Knight now, and might take on a Padawan of her own soon, being much better and more experienced with children at as a young adult than Obi-Wan had ever been.

The Temple had never fallen. Anakin had never Fallen. Darth Sidious had been defeated, and Order 66 was a bad dream that had never come to pass.

Anakin was still a Jedi but openly married now. In the logic of dreams, that was never properly explained; Obi-Wan just accepted it. It was easy to, seeing how happy and Light it made his old Padawan… seeing Padme alive and happy again. Her heart had never been broken. She had served as Chancellor for the term after Palpatine, and then Bail Organa had been elected after, leaving her with much more time to raise the young, good-natured hellspawn that were Luke and Leia. The twins were running around the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and Anakin and Obi-Wan were lounging on a bench, watching them while Padme was off on some errand or other, no longer a Senator or Chancellor but instead the director of a relief program for victims of the Clone Wars.

"I don't know how you ever managed me, Obi-Wan," Anakin said wearily. "They're exhausting."

Obi-Wan snickered. "What goes around, comes around."

Anakin groaned and sighed. "What about you?" he said after a pause.

"What about me?"

"You could take on another Padawan. It's been—what? Thirteen years? Fourteen? You _have_ to have recovered from me by now."

"Sadly, I do believe the trauma has scarred me for life."

Anakin snorted lightly. "You could take on the little redheaded girl. What's her name… Mara." Obi-Wan started, nearly jerking himself out of the dream, which had lulled, by now, his grasp on reality. "Always hanging out with the twins," Anakin continued, unperturbed by Obi-Wan's reaction. "She seems like she'd be a good fit for you."

Obi-Wan looked, and, sure enough, there was a flash of red-gold hair and a pale face, running around with Luke and the less-defined image of Leia (who looked exactly like a young Padme when she stood still, though Obi-Wan somehow felt sure that image wasn't correct). "A good fit?"

Anakin shrugged. "She reminds me of you. Pragmatic, sarcastic, stubborn…" Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and elbowed Anakin in the arm, and the younger man doubled over giggling. _Giggling_. One would have thought a grown man and father would have picked up _some_ dignity by now.

"I don't know," Obi-Wan sighed. "I… did not do so well with you. I would not like to give a repeat performance."

Out of the corner of his eye, the image of Anakin flashed. Flashed into the form of the man—the _thing_ —who'd replaced him. The black helmet and ensemble that he had only seen in HoloNet images.

"You can't do better," Anakin said quietly, "if you don't know what you did wrong in the first place."

* * *

Obi-Wan woke feeling more stiff and sore than usual, and why was he on the floor— _oh_. On the bed above him, a small form was snuggled up inside the blankets. Sighing, he cast aside his spare blanket and pushed himself up with difficulty; apparently, he was not as young as he once was. A glance at his chrono told him it was well after sunrise, and Mara showed no signs of waking. Well, he'd leave her to her sleep and see about fixing breakfast.

The kitchen light did not disturb her, nor did the sounds of his making tea or cereal. By the time, though, he had finished eating, she was beginning to stir. "Good morning, Mara," he said genially.

She jerked upright in bed, eyes wide, body tense, then relaxed as memory came to her. "Morning," she said sheepishly, stretching and pushing the blankets off her.

"Did you sleep well?"

Mara padded slowly into the kitchen, yawned, and nodded. "I don't think I've slept that deeply since Imperial Center."

"Coruscant," Obi-Wan corrected with a twinkle in his eye. He got up and handed her a bowl and the cereal box.

"Insurgent," she grumbled, lips twitching.

Obi-Wan chuckled, also producing a cup of water for her.

"Thanks," she said softly.

"You're welcome. I'm afraid, however, I don't have anything for you to amuse yourself with while I'm gone; not unless you're willing to read my notes."

"Your notes?" Mara said around bites of cereal.

"I've been writing down notes for the past few years about the Jedi Order," Obi-Wan explained. He'd been thinking about it in the silence before Mara had awoken; he had written down no secrets that he felt he couldn't share with her. "What the Temple was like, what the Order was like, the lessons we taught and the philosophies we held, how to build a lightsaber, what individual members were like…"

"Anything that you can remember," she murmured.

He nodded, a lump having risen inconveniently in his throat.

She frowned. "You'd be willing to share that with me?"

He shrugged and smiled faintly. "Can't very well have you sitting here in boredom for hours."

She smiled fleetingly. "Yeah, I guess."

It was his turn to frown. "Mara, is something wrong?"

She shook her head slowly; he could _see_ her try and discard different ways to say whatever it was she was thinking. "I still don't understand why you're doing all this for me," she said at last.

 _Ah_. "Because you need help," Obi-Wan said gently. "Because it's the right thing to do." Her face twisted—oh, a misstep. Of course she would have been raised with a very different set of ethics. "Because it's… kind." She looked up, brow furrowed. "And everyone needs a little kindness in their lives."

She seemed to turn that over in her head. "You must have made a very bad Jedi," she said after a minute, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

He couldn't respond in kind. "I'm afraid I was a very good Jedi," he said, rising from his chair to prepare for the trip. "And that was probably the problem."


End file.
